When: October 21, 2017
Distance: 25k
For the last five years, I had been playing roller derby and going on long skates on rail trails, so running wasn’t really a thing I did except as part of the warmup for practice or maybe a 5k on my treadmill once a week as cross training. When I met my boyfriend, I was introduced to trail and outdoor running and enjoyed running for the first time in my life. As a formerly obese person and non-runner, this was a revelation. This was fun, there were pretty things to see, and what? People ran longer than marathons and he wanted to do that someday??
After a month of dating, he talked me into running a half-marathon, so I signed up for one that was going to take place the evening of Friday, October 13th (which gave me about 3.5 months to train). Fortunately, it was cancelled and instead we discovered this neat trail race an hour away that looked great. They offered a 25k and a 50k, so I signed up for the 25k and my boyfriend signed up for what would be his first ultramarathon!
Training went well and a couple weeks before the race we attended a course tour run (we had intended to go to one a few weeks earlier, but it was cancelled due to Hurricane Irma). It was a no drop run, so there were plenty of breaks and it was a perfect confidence booster for me, because I was essentially running the same distance I would be doing in a few weeks!
Race Day:
The air was misty and there was a great excited energy in the group of runners. At 7:30am, the 50k folk went off, and 30 minutes later we were sent off as well. The weather was gorgeous. Low 70s, I believe it was only 50%ish humidity (the high was 85° that day). Perfection. Even though there was a lot of excitement, I kept an eye on my pace and made sure I didn’t go out too fast.
One thing that threw me off was that the first aid station wasn’t where it was supposed to be (due to damage from the hurricane, some access roads weren’t available). I only knew that because I had gone on the course tour, but it was a short ways down the trail. The miles were nice and chill, I had elected not to bring headphones at all (which I would curse myself for later).
I saw my boyfriend a couple of points during the race and he, “WOOOOOO!’D” at me (think Ric Flair) and we high fived both times, as is our custom when we see each other during runs. I got to the aid station at mile 7 and was feeling pretty dang good. I ate half a clif bar, re-filled one of my water bottles and kept trucking.
It wasn’t until mile 12 that I started to feel it and slow down. I settled into a walk/run pattern for the last several miles and was leap frogging with another runner doing the same thing. As most of the course is single track, we kept saying, “See you soon!” to the other person, because one person had to move out of the way for the other to pass. Eventually she found her second wind and left me for the last couple miles. It was at that time that I decided I needed some music to get me through the last push. I pulled up a song on youtube I’d been singing in my head for the last 5 miles and listened to it (no headphones, just out of the speaker). It helped. A few minutes later I exited the trail onto the final quarter mile push and crossed the finish line to receive my medal and a hug from the race director.
I had 4 goals for the race:
Finish – YES
Not DFL – YES
Under 4 hours – YES
Secret goal of 3.5 hours – YES (3:25:08)
I sat on the ground for about 10 minutes before I made my way back to the car to grab a couple camp chairs and the cooler with drinks and snacks my boyfriend and I had packed that morning. I spent the next hour and a half waiting for my BF to come in. He ended up finishing his first 50k in 5:20:37 and was 5th overall! We sat in camp chairs, watched others come in, and recounted our race stories to each other while drinking some fantastic beers from Swamphead and eating some premium quesadillas from a food truck
It was such a fantastic race, event, course, and everything else I could have ever wanted in my first trail racing experience. Once registration opened for the 2018 race, I immediately signed up…but for the 50k. Eeek! Can’t wait to get back out there and test my mettle.
